but her sense of humor is subtle and dry and, um, one of my favorite examples of it, um, occurred about back in 2003. she has an american lady in waiting, and she was celebrating her 70th birthday, and it wasas being held at the famous nightclub on barkley squarecall called anna bell's.as v the queen had not been to a nightclub since the latete 1940s, right after she got married to prince phillip. she had a wonderful time thatt night, and she was seated next to lord salisbury who is one of thes most illustrious british aristocrats, former head of the house of lords.se and the next day she went on an enagement to st.alman's abbey north of london, and she was

being introduced to a line of dignitaries by the dean of the w abbey who spotted lord salisbury in the line, and he said to thet queen, oh, do you know lord salisbury? she said, oh, yes, robert and ia were out in the nightclub lastas night til half past one.ha so that's sort of the tenor of her dry humor. >> host: sally bedell smith is the guest of queen elizabeth the second is the topic and we will begin with a call from mike in syracuse, new york. your honor book tv on c-span. >> thank you. my question is basically this. given that span of queen elizabeth's reign, being one of the longest rains in england or the u.k. history, given all the prime minister's she has worked with all of the historical events she has seen in her lifetime, has that impact her as a queen from your knowledge?

>> well, i think she has a -- she has a vast store of information, obviously. one of the fascinating things about the queen is, she does not have an ideological filter. she takes things then. that is one reason why she is so valuable to the people who come to earth for confidential audiences. obviously the prime minister's to meet with hurt most weeks for an hour at buckingham palace to but many other people. and she has a wisdom as well as a body of knowledge that she has and she has an extraordinary memory for things. and, you know, when public officials come to her with questions or asking for guidance they always remark, even if they are skeptical going in to their

first encounters with her in those private audiences, and by the way, no one else in the room to record anything of what anybody says which gives them a great deal of freedom to set was on their minds. so harold wilson who was a labor prime minister in the 1970's and was -- you know, it's hard to say, but she had a very affectionate relationship with him. her private secretary, his private secretary said to me that he considered her to be a very astute raconteur of the political scene. she is very good at sizing people up and understanding the nuances of political situations. so all these things have given her a very valuable role. she is not a figurehead.

she has a range of duties that people don't fully appreciate which i tried to explain in the book. >> host: a question from right here in the audience. yes, ma'am. >> i wanted to know if you think that the queen messes the fact that she cannot go out, even in london? i read in your book that she bite out with her sister at the end of world war ii. that seems like one of the only times in her life she was ever totally free to explore. >> guest: i think that is true. it was something that was imposed upon her for an early age when she was a young girl. her governments to take her out. she went underground. she rode on buses and went to museums. at that point she obviously was not clean, so she had a little more freedom to do those as things. it is just something that is part of the structure for life.

she has a certain measure of freedom which is on her private estate, particularly up in scotland which is tens of thousand acres. it is probably where she is happiest because she can go out up into the hills, she can ride her horses which, by the way, at age 86 she still does. she rides her ponies on the hills. so she does have that opportunity have a sense of freedom on around property. prince philip has always had a lot more latitude in terms of getting out and about for many years. he used to drive around london in his own london taxicab. he would wear a little chauffeur's cap when he sat at the wheel. as protection officer would sit in the back seats.

and, you know, he would love driving around london and being undetected. the clean gets out, probably more than you would imagine to have dinner at your friend's home. she will go and have dinner in somebody's kitchen. she goes -- sometimes they have very modest, some of the older ones, you know, don't have as much money as they used to it. very modest apartments. she goes there and does it with just one protection officer. that probably gives her some measure of feeling free as well. >> host: christine in lawrence, kan., you are on with sally bedell smith on book tv. >> caller: yes. i enjoyed reading your book on princess diana which you wrote shortly after she passed away. i was wondering, in your research on your new book on the queen if you discovered anything

more about her relationship with diana and how you would describe the queen's relationship with princess diana? thank you. >> guest: yes, i did discover quite a bit more about it. when i wrote the book about diana back in 1997 and 1998 shortly after her death it was more from the perspective of diana. and, as you might remember, diana was very young and very immature when she became the princess of wales. although the queen made a point of telling her that she had an open door and was free to come and talk to her when she wanted to, the queen is a very busy. i think they ana was intimidated by her. so she did not avail herself of that to the extent that she might have. and they had a good relationship , and it really only fell apart when the andrew

morton book came out in 1992 filled with some pretty damaging information about prince charles and also when it was discovered that she had, in fact, cooperated with it. at that point the queen relationship with her was not all that could. i guess what i discovered more in this book was from the queen's pointed you, you know, what in fact, she had been welcoming. had not been as aware of that the first time around when i was looking at it more through the prism of diana's experience. >> next question from this seven right here. >> what role does cirque anglican faith have in her role -- life both on a public and personal level? >> it has a very profound role. her face is extremely important terror, both in her

daily life, sort of woven into retail live. the of -- the 103rd archbishop of canterbury told me that as a consequence he can take almost anything the royal throws other. she has a sort of appreciation of what can and cannot be accomplished that is partly a result of her faith and a result of life experience. as, you know, the head of the church of england is obviously a vital part of her role as queen. and it was also said that see used their role, a kind of glad service. and, of course, the most profound part of her fate was shown in the coronation. one thing that i discovered in researching the coronation than i had not fully appreciated

before is that the central element of that was not win the crown was put on her head but when she was anointed with the holy oil and when she made the solemn vow to, as, you know, the representative of her people that she was server people until death, and that is why the whole notion of abdication is something that would not ever occur terror. she has made this sacred vow, and she has -- you know, there are a lot of aspects of for yearly calendar that have religious elements, the service of remembrance is held every year to commemorate the war dead. if she observes, you know, to commemorate the washing of the

feet by the disciples which is now done through handing out money to pensioners to recognize their service. it is really wound into her that i had not fully appreciated. a great source of strength for her and evidence of her commitment to our role. >> the next question comes from al the end simple texas. hello. >> caller: hello. thanks for c-span first of all. what do you see the future of the monarchy after elisabeth. second question, speculation, is there any chance that charles might be bypassed after elizabeth and then go straight to william? thank-you speech to the first part is that for a lot of reasons including the enormous affection for the queen and love that has been expressed in the diamond jubilee year preceded by

the wedding of william and kate last year. the british monarchy is probably more -- the public opinion polls show that it is more popular today than ever. the british -- i mean, american presidents would kill for the approval rating that she has had pretty consistently for decades, which is about 80%. there is a sort of hard-core 20 percent of the population that would prefer to see the marquee and and to have it replaced with a republic. it is very strong now. she has quite sensibly modernize the marquee and incremental waste and kept pace with modern times. people recognize that. and she also is very aware of the need to appeal to younger people and in the way her

jubilee was celebrated this year and in other things that she has done, she is trying to appeal more and more to younger people. it was significant that on the last day of the jubilee celebration that the -- that the court royal family was on the balcony in buckingham palace. the queen, would have been the duke of edinburgh had he not been in the hospital. william and kate and obviously prince charles and camilla and harry. and those that she was setting up as the succession is secure and the succession will, in fact, the prince charles. he is the longest --e is the longest waiting prince of wales. she has made very clear that he is next in line. now, it could be that she will continue to reign for another ten or 15 years.

she is 86 years old. she is very robust. but skipping in generation and choosing somebody to be the next monarch, something that would never occur to her. >> host: we have a young questioner right here. hello, in late. [inaudible question] >> host: what is your favorite book ever written and white to be to my favorite book. oh, my goodness. one of the books i have written or my book? i have three children. if someone as the who my favorite child was i would not know what to say. but i guess the one that i am working on now is kind of mike, you know, elisabeths book is my favorite, but i like writing all of them. they have all been infinitely intriguing subjects, really fun to find out how each of them takes. all been quite different.

>> host: elizabeth -- "elizabeth the queen" is the name of the book. sally bedell smith is the author. reread the national book festival in washington d.c. jeff in sydney, mantegna, you are on the air. >> caller: >> i just wondered if the queen acknowledges that the base of her bloodline is anglo-saxon, basically german? >> guest: well, definitely -- she has a lot of german heritage no doubt about that. her family began with george the first who was descended from sophie of hanover and came over in the 18th-century. it was continued, queen victoria married prince albert from germany. but obviously there is an english strain that coaster it

as well. her mother, queen elizabeth, the queen mother, from the staff or family. english scottish family. so it is a mix, but you're right. there is a significant german meat -- lineage. it was a problem, actually, right around the time -- right before world war one when the family name was very germanic. it was bad and burke commander grandfather, king george the fifth tasted, change the names of all the people so that all of the members of the royal family said that they were less dramatic. bentsen byrd became batman. other names were replaced with german counterparts. >> the next question. >> i would like to ask something related to you during your research for biographies.

when you do the research how important is it for utah the vulture questions the personal interview before and so that they can prepare their answers as opposed to asking questions that they don't know about and get what some would say is a more natural response. >> guest: i always do the latter. i prepare a great deal for my interviews and have long lists of questions. i think it is more valuable to have that kind of spontaneous exchange. in some instances i will, if people feel they can speak more freely i will give them the a opportunity to speak on background with a provision that later on i can ask them if certain questions or answers can go on the record, which is fairly routine. but i think it just makes for

better give-and-take if you have questions that the people respond to in the moment. >> host: sally bedell smith, and really your book, maybe i'm reading too much into this, but did you talk with the queen in crafting your book? >> guest: the queen as a policy that is probably sensible from our standpoint which is that in her entire 60 year reign she has never given an interview , and that has helped probably to preserve her mystique. it has shelter from having to pick and choose who she might give interviews to. i was lucky to meet her in private social settings. i describe the three times in the book. and each of them was brief but revelatory, and in each case it

gave me that of glen since -- glimpses of her private side, that gave the of spirits, the flash of white and it so they were very valuable to me. i also watch for a lot in different settings. i traveled with her around. i kid see how she interacted. there are many ways i developed my sense of who she is and how she goes about her job and house seat -- >> host: was she aware you're writing this book? >> guest: she was. i initially approached the palace when i got the assignment . and i wrote a very polite letter and got a very polite letter back saying, we appreciate your interest, but lots of people are interested in writing about the queen. we have hard time choosing

somebody. fortunately i had a group of people who had helped me enormously with the diana book, some of whom had worked for her, some of whom were her relatives. they became my advocates and went to her senior officials at buckingham palace and said, she is an american, but she has a body of work that shows that she writes fair and balanced books and it would be a serious book and a thorough book. in so after about six months they briefed her, her press people briefed her and she gave them permission to give me their cooperation which was very helpful. >> host: pamela, orange, california, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. a pleasure to be able to see and hear. i have enjoyed your entire body of work. especially this seminal research that she has done on this

fabulous figure in our lives. and that thing she has pretty much answered my question which was going to be, how did she -- was she able to interview and get access to the people surrounding the queen and get all of the questions answered? just wanted thank you so much for filling in the background on this wonderful figure in our lifetime, ms. smith. >> guest: thank-you. what was most fun was the range of people that i was able to talk to. again, the help of buckingham palace was very valuable because i would kick in touch with some of her close friends who were naturally a little nervous about possibly speaking. they would call the palace, and the palace would say, we are helping her. you know, use your own judgment, the sudden you're comfortable with. i get in touch with people who

really knew her well to my relatives to my dog trainers, people renter states. the manager of first of farm, restrainers. it was a portrait painters crown jeweler this. of these politicians in newark, members of the clergy. so i love getting many angles of vision, some quite intimate, some have very focused intense, like the portrait artist who spends very informal time with there, a whole different view of heard that other people. >> host: finally, sally bedell smith, why do we care? >> guest: well, they are an extraordinary institution that binds britain together through their continuity, connection to british history and today really

they played -- there is a term which is not terribly good, but they call it the welfare markey. the queen and all the members of families spend so much time supporting charities, contributing their name and their efforts. they, you know, their reward people for good works and set an example of service. the queen, of course, has the extraordinary advisory capacity. you know, she has led an exemplary life. she is the light above politics, one of the most highly respected leaders in the world. she has done all kinds of things behind the scenes to preserve, for example, the commonwealth which is a former british empire that could have easily fall

apart over issues like apartheid. she cares very much about the environment, about the small nations and the commonwealth that face particular challenges like the irelands nation's. so many things that she has contributed to that the british people feel indebted to her for having done. and as i have been going around the country talking to groups i detected a kind of list fullness almost on the part of people. why don't we have somebody like this can unify the country, to the light above politics. she performs a very valuable service. >> host: "elizabeth the queen" is the name of the book. sally bedell smith is the author. thank you for joining us on book tv today. thank you all for being here, and that is going to close out our coverage of the 2012 national book festival. thanks for being with us.

this will all read-share overnight on book tv on c-span2. >> that even part of the 2011 national book festival here in washington, d.c. to find out more visit loc.gov/book fest. >> a wonderful introduction. introd authors love great introduction and great reviews. r th for those of you who go ontoos amazon and click four or five, fi don't think that we don't read read eve every single one of them. and if you get a 4.5 you sit thagency there and you say what?th you couldn't have gone the extra half and given me a five? about that, i've of this is a great american thing that it was

hard to get a five. a lot of people would do a review and and say this is a good book but it has a lot of legal fans, i'm not sure it's everybody's cup of tea and a show sort of a -- a tolerance that americans have. in one of my reviews was along that line. it came from the town library and in auburn maine. when they get a new book into the library she reads it and then she sent a little note around to everybody because the winters in maine are long. there's nothing like sitting in front of the fire as the snow comes down in june reading a good book. and this is what she wrote. she said, this is the definitive book of a great attorney, filled with courtroom drama and celebrity gossip, if you like that kind of thing. [laughter] so i hope you like this kind of thing. 100 years ago last fall clarence darrow, the famous defense

attorney, stood on a downtown los angeles sidewalk and he watched his chief investigator seized by the police caught in the act of bribing a juror. a few weeks later, darrow was indicted on two counts of bribery, and burt franklin, the investigator, agreed to testify against them. he swore that darrow had ordered him to pay $4000 to jurors who agreed to vote not guilty. and darrow was at that time at the height of the same one of america's foremost trial lawyers, political leaders and populist champions, and his careened staggered off track there in southern california. caught up by shame he left his wife one reunite for the apartment of his mistress. with a revolver in one pocket and a whiskey barrel -- whiskey bottle in the other, he sat down and vowed to kill them so. she brought out two glasses. they sat at a wooden table underneath one of those swinging bare lightbulbs. and fortunately for us she talked him out of it. he went on to create an american

architect, lawyer for the little guy, advocate for the common folk. poking his thumbs, regarding the jury from beneath that cascading shock of hair, speaking with plain but emotional conviction of the nobility of man, the frailty of mankind and the threat to liberty posed by narrowminded men of wealth and their legal guns for hire, and his words, i believe, resonate especially today. ..

politicians, newspaper men in the hallways outside jammed with spectators trying to get in. at times in his career, thousands of people what's around the courthouse on the outside listening, hoping to catch a glimpse of the words coming through the windows as the closed for the defense. now, in his lectures and public speaking, which he did a lot of, he affected a humble awkwardness a court is simplicity to endear him to his audience. you get stuck with his arms folded tapping his gold spectacles on his shoulder, his brow contracted in thought. of did he would lean on the rail and take the jurors into his confidence, talking so softly that those in the back row had to lean forward so that they could hear what he said.

all of a sudden is to me there would changed voice turned harsh, john muscles tighten soaring toward a chris endo, swinging his arms, and then the storm will pass. [applause] the sun would return. the jurors would relax. congeal engaging. he never addressed juries, he said carries but to them. it was all about contact. very important to american legal proceeding and history. judges and prosecutors do their duty. they were there to exact vengeance and to safeguard property. but darrow believed that juror's commit given the opportunity and a skillful enough invitation could be persuaded to look past the legal particular, judge defendant in the context of his time, situational factors that prompt behavior. he sought to make even the most serious of crimes comprehensible he talked about human beings and the difficulties of life and the

futility of human planning, the misfortunes of the accused, the strange workings of fate and chance that had landed this porcelain trouble. he would try to make the jury understands not so much the case as the defendant, and it was not unusual in the late 19th and early 20th century for some of those arguments to go on to an hours a day for three days at a time, to give a closing argument in a significant case he would do so without notes in marvelous displays of intellect and concentration. and it was more than a tactic. it was what he believed. he was a determinant. he did not believe in free will, nor good, nor evil. there were no more of salutes, truth, justice, of the mercy. as he put it, we are all poor, maligned creatures bound hand and foot by the chains of heredity and environment doing what we have to do in a barbarous and cruel world. that's about all there is. he had no faith in god or

churches and won notoriety in the jazz age as the country's most prominent atheist. he built a moral code upon the lives of very pointlessness, and the comfort and tolerance that we can beings can give to our fellow doomed creatures here on this planet. the practicing defense attorney, trial lawyer, and it is time he represented the mad bomber who felt that if he destroyed the chicago opera house it would bring an end to world war one. little tommy crosby, a 13-year-old charged with murder after shooting a sheriff who had come to you victim's family three days before christmas. need this to say there'll got him off. and then there was a suspect in the chicago gambling from who went to women came to bail amount of notes each other and both claiming to be his wife decided he would rather spend the night in jail. [laughter] there were gangsters and psychopaths and rumrunners and journalists ended bunco and many

a scorned woman. a socialite who smuggled a handgun into court shot her husband in the middle of their divorce proceeding. just kill them. i hope so. but could not resist the case or the wisecracks. she was no doubt guilty of contempt of court. but leading the classic definition of huntsman he convince that jury to have mercy of the poor widow. [laughter] they could not arrest the woman for shooting and killing. it's nothing like chicago. and like billy fled, a notorious rick, a professed acidulous who took great pleasure. and he used sex as well as a narcotic. he relied on physical near this, his mistress said, to escape the emptiness and spiritual isolation. sex, he told her, was the only

feeling in the world that can make you forget for a little while. and work as well. i've had a consciousness that i was doing it to keep myself occupied so that i might forgive myself. every man had his dope, whether it was religion, philosophy, creed, was the chemical faint -- cocaine, morphine, anything to take the weight of reality. and so we have a hero, intelligent, captivated, a renegade with little regard for right or privilege. to him the world was equally a moral above as well as the los of the progressive area reformer frederick hero. some might be squeamish about it in the criminal cases? in the course of that 60-year career he would tailor testimony, pay off witnesses and tracy tried for a jury bribing and both times barely escaped. do not the rich and powerful bribe jurors, you would as? did not intimidate and coerce judges? to the shrink from any weapons?

get in -- compassion for those the faced loss or despair or persecution. a strong emotional nature doted by his upbringing. his father was a book living freethinking of their and owner of a royal furniture shop, abolitionist with steep values of liberty and equality. compassion plays a role of a unifying theory in his chaotic universe. the bids in his other office was built by overalls. poor women from the slums hold in threadbare clothes. as one less charitable paul describe it, the types one would expect in a fortune teller parlor including half wits whom even got could not teach anything. he would emerge at the end of the day, see the long line, side, and offer an understanding in smile. sunday dinners would grow cold as he sat with a client for an hour or more patiently hearing the facts of the case, offering

advice to the poor man's troubled. depending upon how he was fixed at the time of 30 more of his cases are to nothing. he spent much of his money on wine, women, and song and the rest to wasted. up seven he was the foremost champion of personal liberty in this time. when he was a boy he liked to say the hired man and dignity, dining with a family of his employers, shared their peewit church on mondays. court the boss's daughter. there were no big banks, stores, very little money in the body and a monopoly and other riches or poverty. the nation's founding principles were stretched beyond recognition in the roar of the industrial age. a shrewd and lucky few made huge fortunes and they found in the writings of charles darwin and herbert spencer the comforting assurance that the port deserves their love. they ordered managers to lower

cost and when workers organized deals or unions private armies and local militia were summoned to a breakup strikes and demonstrations often with volleys of rifle fire. as one explain the social order of the time, the perplexing question why one man should be strong, happy, and prosperous and another week, afflicted, and distressed may be entered by the suggestion that the purpose was to teach the power of human endurance and the ability of a life of struggle. well, according to the courts a workers only right was to negotiate man-to-man and take himself elsewhere when terms are not to his liking and then marry the boss's daughter. atop the social order the robber barons flaunted their aristocratic aspirations by dressing up like 18th-century european royalty, spectacular parties, a chorus girls jump of cakes and hang diamond colors on their stocks. the greatest, they were

uninhibitedly from 08 in their misconduct. drooling, eating and drinking incredible amounts. they sometimes seemed to avoid a shame, manners, and morals and in the ethics of let me. well, the barron's also control legal establishment right up to the supreme court or the justices were to work diligently and redefining the bill of rights is a guarantee of property of all else. the jurists who resisted aggrandized and would be honored by history and the mediocrities of the court at the time would be forgotten. that was no consolation for the working men and women at the time. by his 40th birthday in 1897, the great economic release valve, the frontier, had been gone. at the time he was america's top labor lawyer. in los angeles to defend james and john mcnamara, to union terrorists who planted a bomb in the los angeles times 1910 killing 20 innocent printers a newspaperman in the explosion.

notable victories defending laborers and woodworkers. he had faced down the robber barons and gunman. he had no illusions in the fall of 1911 that the forces of industry of los angeles would place where. bribing a jury to save a man's life is misters wrote, he would not hesitate. but he survived it came out a better man and of more fine lawyer and had been on the ropes he knew what it was to suffer. the great muckrakers said the senate is humbled. the man at last season is frightened. faces accusers squarely in los angeles making elegant please in his own defense that he won a not guilty verdict in the first trial and a hung jury in the next. from the ashes of his ordeal darrow force the grandest of american legal careers at a champion of personal liberty in defender of the underdog. he became the attorneys for the damned. broken disgraced returned to

chicago took the cases of others . there was isaac bottom of black men accused of the upper rape and murder. comnenus to anarchist's snared in the reactionary fervor of world war one and the red scare. frank lloyd wright, sexual freedom when the architect was pursued by federal prosecutors for violation of the man act which made it a crime for unmarried couples to cross state lines. today we recall his plea against the death penalty and for the lives of nathan leopold and richard low, killers who murdered a chicago boy to devastate their intellectual superiority by committing the perfect crime. it was an especially despicable killing. the call for mercy in a closing argument that lasted three days in the stifling summer of 1924 save their necks. of course, we remember darrow for the trial where he fought for academic and scientific freedom and battled those who would inject religion and ban

the teaching of evolution in the public-school. stymied by a hostile judge he called the lead prosecutor three-time presidential candidate william jennings bryan to the stand. demoralized by spencer tracy. when the trial was over he was the most famous lawyer in the world. '68 democratic the short of money and for retirement. he could have demanded huge fees on wall street representing rich divorce is a chicago. instead he took the case. an african-american physicians and move into a white neighborhood in detroit. it was the summer that the klan had marched down pennsylvania avenue. you might remember the photos from our history books and high-school, all of those folks in white robes walking with the capitol behind them. in detroit a mob gathered pricking the windows of the house threatening its inhabitants. he and his family and friends fired that crowd killing one man and injuring another, there were charged with murder.

defending into a grueling trial that spanned seven months for a token fee raised by the naacp. he won the case but was staggered by a heart attack in the summer of 1926 and was never the same. the great theme block -- the long war that he fought in is much to the courtrooms and cases was the defense of individual liberty from the relentless crushing and personal forces of modernity. no era of the world has witnessed such a rapid concentration of wealth and power as this one. history furnishes about the lessons of the inevitable result . liberty produced prosperity and this prosperity books with doubting i upon the mother liberty you give it breath and threatens to strangle her step. americans need a new, sustaining in his embrace, in defense of life's underdogs, darrow created one giving the narrative voice, tested supplies was sympathetic characters and forces on place in american folklore.

the underdog got on top and would probably be just as rotten as the underdog. but in the meantime i am for him. he needs his friends a damn sight more. americans of his era through it strength. they can again today. there is something grand and epic in his fierce resistance to those oppressive forces which in varying sizes had inspired the rebels in his ancestry, the abolitionists in his boyhood, and it imperils freedom in his lifetime and still pose a threat to our liberty today. the marks of battle are all over his face after watching the road trial. he has been through more wars than a regiment of pershings, and most have been startled to the death without quarter quarter. has he always one? actually, no. his cause seems lost among us. facilities live on. they do, but they are not as safe as they used to beat.

thanks. [applause] >> when darrell argued his cases , was he always putting the interests of his clients first, or did his desire to promote a particular political point of view or his desire to expand his own persona on the national stage sometimes take precedence over the interests of his clients. >> that is a great question, and this is probably the great issue about the darrows character.

when he took these cases he would take them with the idea of staging a public trauma that would teach and instruct and advance his political agenda and, of course, making money and give him fame as well. the fame of the money has been pretty much affable to any good defense attorney, but there were a lot of people who said the fm, you are misusing your clients, using them as pawns in your reader political game. the chief criticism at the time, particularly in that big bill hayward trial that was in idaho, the western federation of miners had been charged with blowing up a former governor of idaho with a bomb in his garden gate. darrow was accused of giving this great compassion closing argument that was all about socialism. it was all about equality. it was all about redistribution.

and he was accused by one of his defense lawyers of doing exactly what you said. i forgive him for it because i don't think he did cross the line in that particular case. the hayward case was a very small court room, and he was sitting here. the jury was right where those lights are. that is up close he was. the jury was not over on the side. he was in front of the judge. so for three months he was this far away, and he would make wisecracks with them and cultivate them and talk to them. he had a very, very good idea when he made that first closing argument when it was a wanted to year. of course he was vindicated by the verdict which was not guilty. >> clarence darrow was a brilliant lawyer. you mentioned the leopold case. and in that case the argument

that he made about the elimination of the death penalty , his exact words, your honor, society may that be in need of protection from these two despicable individuals forever. and it turns out that richard lowe who was a means of a gun died in a prison fight. it nathan leopold basically will his body to science. biological tests, subjected his body to biological tests and it pulled the point. the thing that is ironic about it. the judge, the man who was the judge in that trial did not accept clarence darrow's argument. he sentenced them to life imprisonment because he was convinced in his memoirs he was convinced it would be the more cruel thing, the more cruel

punishment. so clarence darrow never knew that this judge did not accept his argument. he actually made a wonderful argument against the death penalty, but the judge did not accept it. anyway. >> it is a famous argument, and it is a classic darrow argument in that it does not start at a endo disease. it starts as a end then it backtracks and wonders of them bring up in and no and be. if you talk for three days you can't go from aided be. the total impression will be lost. he had to sort of read back like of be looking for a flower. and one of the things that he consistently did in the trial, illinois had never executed teenager's in a case where they pled guilty, and so he pled the two of them guilty and was constantly trying to give the judge a reason why he could save the boys' lives when all of chicago wanted to see them hung

for this despicable crime. and so he always kept coming back to this. there is no precedent for this. there is no precedent. the state has never done this. he would "poetry and tucker of the death penalty in that come back and say by the way, a 19th and 18th. these will be the first boys, he actually called the boys, you know, the poor boys. you're not going to execute them. that was the hook that he gave the judges. finally he could ride an opinion saying, well, not about to break precedent. president constrains me. at the judge, and that's why i'm not going to execute the when of chicago won the to be done. he gave the judge appeared with his other arguments for three days he prepared public opinion for this verdict that would save the boys' lives that the judge himself would not have been pilloried for making this decision. that was what was so masterful about him. >> yes.

clarence darrow is famous for his speeches. how was he at the nuts and bolts of law, the procedures and corporate procedures. >> she was very good at picking juries. he was a great judge of human nature. he was very good at cross-examination, but he was awful at the technical part of the law, and he would pick up in his famous case, arthur garfield hayes was the attorney for the american civil liberties union. the judge would say, all right. we're going to have an argument on that point of law. parents to you want to come back into my office. leyritz was sick, no, let arthur and of that. i don't do that. earlier in his career, i don't know how many of you had to read but the author was an attorney. he became the legal partner. most of the legal brief writing, when they had to go into the appeals court was done by

masters. there is a whole chapter about their very famous falling got and the incredible spite they had for each other for the rest of their lives. they were both very greedy, womanizers, and both convinced that they were literary men thrown into the wrong profession and what they really needed was peace and quiet that the other one make all the money so i can retreat to my office or write poetry and novels. it is a great untold story of american legal history. >> did daryl ever get involved in politics and endorsed any candidates, though i expect a candid it might not want his endorsement. >> one of the exciting things i found when i was doing the story was, we all know about william jennings bryan cross of gold speech and the populist movements studied in school that took place in the 1890's. and brian represented the farmers that were the core of the populist party, but also an urban populist party.

clarence darrow was the chief of the urban populist movement in chicago where it was first tested to see if he could couple the interest of the dirt farmers with the immigrants and the factory workers in the city. and so he ran for congress once and was defeated. he was offered the nomination for mayor of chicago and turned it down and was offered the nomination for governor of illinois entered the town. in 1904 when william randolph hearst ran for president, darrow tried to do what william jennings bryan had done, which is seize the presidential nomination with a single speech. he was supposed to nominate first for the presidency. he wrote this amazing speech. he gave it as -- at midnight one night at the democratic national convention. all the reporters just loved it. it did move the gallery bill wait -- it did not move the gallery the way that bryant had,

the magic just was not there. the goal democrats, the wall street democrats to come back and seize the party and controlled the floor. so it was a trick that darrow tried. he could not pull it off. it was one of the reasons why he hated bryan ellis life. he thought that he was a smarter and better populace that brian that brian got all this unjustified recognition. and when that day came into the sea that he could put brian on the stand and tear him apart and put this awful ending tell his political reputation and indeed he died several days later, a dislike of the movie. darrow's sleep -- sees it with relish. probably no time of his life that he was happier than in those hours when he was making a fool in front of the whole country. >> do you have any thoughts on where they are today, some of

his issues still being fought in texas where there is a bryan, texas. the school systems are still turning some of the same issues. >> only one statue outside the courthouse in the tennessee, and it is not darrow. it is william jennings bryan. convictions about revolution. the first part of the question is important. it is an interesting question because i get asked a lot. and that -- is an easy one for me to answer. in doing the research for this book came upon this amazing class of public defenders. the death penalty bar. and they work in texas, georgia, illinois, places where executions are carried on routinely. most of their clients are guilty . they list the horrible things they say they have done. they know they're not going to get them off, and yet they throw

themselves into the defense of these on the principle that everybody needs an offense and if the death penalty is wrong. and makes collectively over the past and 15 years i think that they have, you know, helps change american attitude about the death penalty. we are switching back again away from executions. about ten years ago it was the thing to do and people were dying almost daily around the country. so this very unselfish, known, unrewarded group of defense attorneys that nobody knows their names are the heroes of today. >> two quick questions. did he did a pretty good reading or was that pro bono? the other was, did he did scopes of? i thought that he was convicted? >> an amazing trial. it was not like harris. dayton, tennessee was a small

sleepy southern town. could not even drink. it was a dry town. the town fathers one summer day were sitting around in the drug store drinking coca-cola said. one guy said, a paper that the american civil liberties union is looking for a test case on this evolution thing. the druggist happens to be the school board president. let me go get the text. i think we teach evolution in the schools. well, why don't we stays a trial here. you know, who is going to be defended? go get john scopes, young fellow. up playing tennis. they brought him in and said, this is what we want to do. you're apt to be convicted. is that okay with you? the tickets to the supreme court >> okay. i'll do that. they sent a telegram to the american civil arizona st. we have your defendant. he will be convicted and you can take the cases appear court. it was set as a publicity stunt

from the beginning of three lawyers being lawyers, as soon as they get into the courtroom, they knew somebody was going to go down as the loser and of a sudden started to mysteriously inserted arguing back and forth. and the state of tennessee, the district attorney who was supposed to be an on the were going to convict this guy pont decided that he was going to bar all experts testimony. so he did that. so he said, i have no ready to call. to my going to call. he sat and thought. they sat and did rehearsals. where did cain give his life? howdy john get out of the fish. so they were all planned and ready. on monday, came around. i want to call. you let me call any scientific experts, i want to call a physical expert, and that's the way and jennings bryan got on the stand in dayton, tennessee. he was convicted. the judge made the very

unfortunate for history mistake of giving too high a fine for what a judge was allowed to do. anything over $80 the jury had to do. instead the judge fined and $100. there was a technicality. and when the case was argued in the supreme court, on that technicality the state of tennessee, which at this time was so angry they have been exposed to the entire world is a bunch of southern backwoods ignoramuses, seized on a technicality to reverse the case but in reversing the case they issued a strict order back to the trial judge saying, you are not to retry this case. and so in the in the aclu lost because they did not get their testimony to go and it did not happen for many years later. dan whether that was pro bono.

>> scathingly criticized for representing because their parents were very wealthy families in chicago which is part of the reason why such a famous case was that these boys had been given everything this country has to give answers to wasted by this stupid thread killing. so darryl had to accused -- issued a statement because the papers were talking about the million dollar defense. so i agree that we will go by as special board of the local bar association and establish a suitable fee thinking all the while that mildred ever hold it to him and he would still make seven other thousand dollars or ever was because the two families were wealthy and it began to take the case. he went to the families and they said, well, you said that the bar association. he said, what? kellogg.

this is what you said you came to my house the middle of the nine biggest of the lives. it would before the bar association and the of the muslim nuys deity had to sweat with his co attorney. any other lawyer would have been happy with the fee. anybody else to back. >> yes. i would like to follow up on the leopold, a more personal question. i was born in chicago on the south side in hyde park. my father went to a height part high-school born in 1921. what did the people in hyde park think about clarence darrow's representation and how did he in list?

>> the atmosphere in chicago as a whole, one of the things it had to do was to slow things down as best he could. try to give the judge some way to not have said he had support within the small academic community a lot of people came to chicago and said this is going it's a new theory, being tested right here. that's part of the reason why remember to the state. in the end all that talk went for naught because the judge did make the decision on much narrower grounds.

so in his decision he said we all have to go any of that scientific stuff. you know they did it. the only question here is whether not were going to hang him. but hyde park at that time was a very liberal community, as it is now. taro was very much within the academic community. he had this thing called biology club where the different faculty members would come over to his house. twenty of them would gather in his library, and whoever was the smart one on the scientific said he would lecture for half an hour. then they would argue back and forth about the facts and somebody would come another we can talk about freud. he was very much a part of the academic community. overall he turned very slowly as public opinion to say the boys' lives. but he did not really have to go too far among that select group

at the university of chicago. >> send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> let me just say i think you can sum up, it's a very timely book. i hope you will enjoy. i think they can be summed up in one sentence, that seldom if ever in our history have we seen such a concerted series of vicious personal attacks directed against any president of the united states. completely funded in this case by a pair of brothers being oil barons named the koch brothers, with the assistance of an all too compliant american media.

and you add those three elements together and to get the obama hate machine. so i would just like to see a little about each of those elements and then open it up for questions until the cameras are turned off. and let's start with a hate directed against obama. first, i've got to say i think criticism of any african president is fair game. i'm part of the white house press corps. i go to the white house every day. i would've been there today if i were coming down here, and everyday in front of the white house, pennsylvania avenue, there's a crowd of people protesting something. and i love the. i always make a point of checking out what they're for come with the issue of the day is. it's a very healthy part of our democracy. and criticism of the president of courses been around for a long time. if you want to go back to the ugliest presidential campaign history you can't go back to

1800 john adams and thomas jefferson, the things that were said particularly by their followers. but with president obama, it's been -- attacks not on his policy so much as on him as a person. we haven't seen that i do believe and i went back and did a lot of research in presidential campaigns, presidential history, we haven't seen that directed that, that severe and the ugly directed at any president since abraham lincoln. we think of lincoln of course as saint abraham. he wasn't thought of that we turn his lifetime. goes home after he was assassinated. when he came to washington, he was introduced to the nation by the kentucky statesman as follows. abraham lincoln is a man above the medium height, he passed the six-foot marked by an intro to. he is rawboned, bowlegged, but

me, pitch and tone, so lopsided, a shapeless skeleton and a very tough very dirty unwholesome skin. his lips were true beyond the natural level of the face, but a pale and neared with tobacco juice. his teeth are filthy. meet your president, your new president of the united states. [laughter] >> at the same time someone, another paper published this profile of mr. lincoln. mr. lincoln stands six feet tall in his socks, which he changes once every 10 days. his anatomy is composed mostly of bones, and when walking he resembles the offspring of a happy marriage between a derrick and windmill. his head is shaped something like a rutabaga. he can hardly be called hansen

even though he is certainly much better looking since he had the smallpox. [laughter] >> flash forward, president obama called a racist, marxist, fascist, a dictator, a muslim. that's not meant as a positive term by the way, a man of faith, a muslim meaning of terrorist. announced he -- a nazi, foreigner. the jackass. rush limbaugh calling the. a liar. and a socialist. this is obsession with obama as a person, what others have called them. they have to kind of prove that he is not like us. and some of it, not all of the but some of it of course is the color of his skin. these black and we are way. used the first african-american

president. but also is not a true american. the whole birth certificate nonsense. all this shows that he is in something different, something else, something foreign. it's really this obsession to say, to try to destroy the president, barack obama personally. david horwitz, one of the most conservative commentators out there, he himself calls them the obama derangement syndrome. they just can't help himself. i don't know how many of you have heard about this, goes home, last week the leading federal judge in montana sends out an e-mail on his official judicial e-mail account to his friends, this joke about little barack obama asking his mommy, why am i black and you are white? she says well, for all i know about your father, i'm surprised

he didn't bark when we have sex. like she and sex with the dog. he did visit on his official better e-mail. he said i don't usually send jokes out but i thought this one was particularly funny. that's how sick these people are, and that's what we have seen over and over again. again, directed not so much against, you can disagree with president obama's health plan that was strong enough for that is government takeover of health care, but you can disagree them on taxes or whatever. this is against them personally and trying to destroy and discredit him personally, the obama hate mission. and it's not just fox news. it's out there because of a couple of people that most americans have never heard of, the famous koch brothers, now famous charles and david koch. and again, we have seen corporate sponsored attacks against president before, particularly, and i outlined to

them, franklin delano roosevelt -- by the way, that was the dupont brothers. there were three of them at the time. they actually banded together, put their money together, form something called the liberty league to deny fdr a second term. and then with bill clinton of course was richard miller gates who funded all the investigations and led to paula jones come on and on, the articles in "the american spectator." but nothing compared to the money and the organization that we have seen on the part of charles and david koch, who are the heads of koch industries. they are the third and fourth richest man in america. we know about bill gates and warren buffett. these are number three and number four, combined wealth of $50 billion. they have put more money and --

by the way i have to say this. they do some good things, particularly david koch was the wealthiest man in new york city. you thought michael bloomberg was. no, it's david koch. but he funded the metropolitan museum of art, cancer research centers around the country. but most of their money goes into political activities. and they are everywhere. the heritage foundation in washington, d.c., koch brothers. the cato institute, when it started, koch brothers. some of you may know now that koch brothers, cato kind of when its own independently and the koch brothers are now suing the cato institute to get it back to be a totally controlled koch brothers operation. people -- americans for prosperity, the most active political organization today all funded by the koch brothers. freedom works, dick armey's organization, koch brothers.

john kasich in ohio, koch brothers candidate, bought lock, stock and barrel by the koch brothers. same with scott walker in wisconsin. everywhere in california couple years ago there was a measure, prop 23 on the ballot to repeal the clean, new clean car standards put in by arnold schwarzenegger, that measure to repeal the standards which lost, prop 23, totally funded by the coke brothers. legislation in west virginia to overturn a new mining safety rules that were put in place after that last mine disaster, the effort to overturn mining safety regulations funded by the brothers. i had in the book a page with 53 different organizations, a lot of them by the way research centers on college campuses around the country, all for the purpose of disputing the existence of global warming and fighting to do away with

government regulations. nothing to do with climate control. 57 different organizations that i was able to find that are either partially or totally funded by the koch brothers. they reach is so great that someone has called them the coke the plus. think of all the arms out there. and they don't do it alone. to get together twice a year with their corporate buddies from around the country, and raise money for right wing political causes. two days before the book came out, i'm so happy this happened because i could tell people you see, i'm not exaggerating, i'm not making this up, two days before the book came out they had their latest meeting in palm springs or and i'll tell you was there. sheldon was there. their meetings are routinely attended by republican governors, kasich, walker, chris christie, bob mcdonnell from virginia. i'm sure rick scott, they've all

been there. supreme court justice antonin scalia of course, they've all been there. so their meetings these corporate chiefs and this one, today for the book came out, about a month or so ago, they raise $100 million in one weekend to defeat barack obama this year for president. think about that. if you look at the super pacs for romney and santorum and ron paul and newt gingrich, up until super tuesday they had spent a total of all the candidates of $53 million. and that one weekend they raise $100 million. they are huge to they will say and they will do anything. of course, it's a lot easier for the now since citizens united because you're not on raise unlimited corporate money but you don't have to report which corporations obtained which bills. but they also couldn't do it wi